Be Careful What You Wish For
by Ace of Hearts
Summary: Sano wishes that Megumi were more happy-go-lucky. Megumi wishes that Sano were more responsible. A grand cosmic joke, by the Great Power Out There, grants both their wishes...only in a more unorthodox way than either would have hoped for.
1. Chapter One: The Big Switcheroo

A wealthy-looking American couple were riding along the street in their equally elegant victoria, the woman daintily fanning herself with a peacock-feather article that was more ornamental than effective, the man idly observing his surroundings. Suddenly, a shriek that the husband decided was a surprisingly accurate imitation of the Rebel Yell, followed by a massive crash worthy of a cannon explosion, jolted the clinic the couple was passing by, causing their horses to skid to a halt and neigh in fright as a voice that was a cross between a woman's screech and an outraged roar hollered, "GET OUT OF HERE, YOU USELESS, ACCIDENT-PRONE TROUBLEMAKER!!!" As the American couple watched in wide-eyed bemusement, a tall, well-muscled youth with dark brown hair sticking straight up in a rather eye-catching style was hurled out of the clinic, flying like some unwanted stray being kicked out. As the young man lied prone on the street and grumbled something that sounded rather obscene while rubbing his sore head, the American woman turned to her husband and whispered in New York-accented English, "My, Mr. Christensen, these Japanese people are certainly a violent race, are they not?"   
"Indeed they are, Mrs. Christensen," her husband agreed, shaking both his head and the reins to urge the horses on. 

Back on the sidewalk, Sagara Sanosuke, a.k.a. just plain Sano, a.k.a. Zanza, a.k.a. Rooster Head, a.k.a. that freeloader with the swanky hair, rubbed all the sore spots on his body--there seemed to be a lot more of them than the ones he'd gotten from the previous encounter--before grimacing in the general direction of the clinic he'd just been unceremoniously tossed out of.   
"Ow, that really hurt," the ex-gangster grumbled to himself, gingerly touching a growing bruise above his left eyebrow that was beginning to turn a most interesting shade of burgundy. Glaring at the clinic--and at the woman who'd done the kicking out--Sano resisted the urge to shake his fist at the building as he muttered to himself, "What's the fox's problem, anyway? Okay, so I may not be as well-bred as she thinks she is, but does she really have to go throwing me out of the clinic when I was trying to help out? I mean, just because I trashed the whole place, flirted with all the female patients, used one of her sandals to squash that spider--not my fault she wears clunkier shoes than I do--drank all her special medicine to cure Mr. Yajima's diarrhea because I thought it was sake, threw up all over her apron and kimono ten minutes later, nearly set fire to her hair five minutes after that, accidentally knocked Dr. Genzai unconscious when I was showing off my flying kick to that cute Mitsuko girl, and gambled away all her money while she was attending on that surgery, she thinks I'm a troublemaker!" The handsome youth pulled himself into a cross-legged sitting position, folding his arms across his chest and letting out an insulted huff.   
"Why can't she just learn to relax one of these days, she'll give herself a stroke if she keeps this responsibility crap up for much longer," he nodded wisely to himself. 

A passing man and his five-year-old son walked by as Sanosuke was rambling to himself, and the little boy detached himself from his father to peer curiously at the fighter-for-hire before drawing back to his parent.   
"Tou-san," he spoke up with the conscious politeness of a five-year-old, "why is that funny-looking man with the rooster-hair talking to himself like that?" His father darted a wary glance at Sanosuke, and quickly pulled his son closer to him while hastening his pace, mumbling to the little boy, "Don't look at him, Hikaru--those crazy types are spurred on if you pay them any attention, but if we pretend we didn't see him, maybe he won't attack us." And he propelled his son away from Sanosuke as fast as he could. 

Inside the clinic, Ayame and Suzume were clinging to each other, watching as Dr. Takani Megumi took long, deep breaths in an effort to calm herself down.   
"She's scary when she's angry," Ayame whispered into her sister's ear, who nodded mutely in agreement. Megumi, meanwhile, was pulling off a pretty impressive impression of the first ever yoga guru in Japan, as she closed her eyes and continued taking deep breaths, appearing almost peaceful if it weren't for the dangerous twitching of her left eyebrow as she remembered that idiotic Rooster Head's antics up until when she'd kicked him out.   
"Idiot," she growled under her breath at just the memory of what he'd done. "Idiot, troublemaker, rogue, devil, fool, clumsy oaf!"   
"Oh, no! Now she's saying bad words," Suzume whispered back to Ayame, who quickly clapped her hands over her ears to block out all those "bad words." Megumi opened her eyes, and their cranberry-colored gaze soon fell upon a decorative little porcelain kiosk draped with tiny china roses, sitting on a low table a few feet away from her. How good it would feel to throttle that innocent little kiosk and pretend it was Sano's head, and just smash it against the wall the same way he'd ripped off one of her sandals and let it drop over that poor, unsuspecting spider.   
"No." Megumi clenched her hands into fists, then relaxed her fingers as she repeated to herself, "No, I've already acted completely unrefined enough for today. Can't sink down to that Kamiya tomboy's level...at least, not yet." Her eyes fell on the two little girls staring wide-eyed up at her with unconcealed fascination, and the statuesque doctor barely escaped sweatdropping, opting instead to clear her throat and try to regain her composure.   
"Ayame, Suzume," she spoke up sweetly, when she was sure she could talk normally again without every other word coming out as a threat against Sanosuke, "would you be good little nurses and check up on your grandfather while I make some medicine to alleviate his pain, all right?   
"All right," the two children nodded, still wide-eyed after the Sano-abuse and flying furniture of a few minutes earlier, and obediently scurried off while Megumi sighed and tiredly brushed her fingers through her long hair, glancing around at the giant, monsoon-worthy mess that Sanosuke--otherwise known as the walking disaster with the rooster hair, she thought darkly to herself--had left in his wake.   
"Why can't that idiot ever seem to grasp some common sense?" she complained to herself as she reluctantly began cleaning up Sano's handiwork. "He can't possibly expect to contribute to society if all he does is drink, gamble, and demolish others' workplaces!" 

Outside, Sanosuke glared one last time at the clinic, before shoving his hands into his pockets and beginning to walk away, muttering under his breath, "I wish the fox would just lighten up and learn how to have fun and forget all her responsibilities every once in a while," at the same time that Megumi shook her head inside the clinic and said, "If there's one thing I wish for, is for that Sagara chicken-head to convert into a halfway decent person with some sense of responsibility." Simultaneous with their words, a shooting star flashed across the sky, but as it was midday, neither of them actually noticed its presence. 

* * *

**That Night...**

_ She was drinking sake. A lot. So much, in fact, that she wondered why she hadn't gone to the bathroom yet. Oh, yes--because she was gambling...with skills that were so pitiful, she was almost surprised she hadn't lost even more money than she already had. No, never mind--she just did. In fact, she just lost so pathetically, she turned around and chugged down an entire jug of a cheap-tasting alcohol that she suspected was stronger than sake in an effort to drown her inner sorrow at losing while upholding a masculine devil-may-care-that-I-just-lost-everything-I-could-possibly-earn-in-the-next-twenty-years front._

"NOOOOOO!!!" Megumi sat up in bed, wide awake and feeling her heart pounding as she tried to stop hyperventilating. She shivered at the horror of her nightmare, starting to draw her blanket tighter around her when she began to sense that something was wrong. Terribly wrong. For example, why couldn't she feel any hair falling gently against the nape of her neck and her back? Why were her surroundings so dingy and messy? _Good grief, a pig lives in better conditions than this, _she thought to herself, even as her mind puzzled over why she suddenly felt as though a snake had crawled into her pants. Wait a minute..._pants?_ She didn't wear pants!   
"Oh, no," Megumi muttered to herself, swallowing hard and throwing off the ratty blanket as she got up unsteadily and tripped her way toward the nearest object that might serve as a mirror. After tottering wildly around the pigsty of a room for several panicky minutes, she finally found a pan of lukewarm water and nearly dunked her entire head in to look at her reflection. The reflection of an attractive youth with high cheekbones and dark eyes...a _male,_ attractive youth. A dismayingly familiar, male, attractive youth.   
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" The ensuing heartbreaking cry practically shook the entire roof off the little house and sent it flying right into the moon. 

* * *

**Fifteen Minutes Later...**

Sanosuke got up sleepily and shuffled around, looking for anything edible to cure his midnight hunger pangs. Stepping into the nearest pair of slippers he could find, the fighter-for-hire yawned into one hand while digging around through all the variety of foodstuffs with the other, wondering in the back of his mind why his head suddenly felt as if a ten-pound weight had been attached to it.   
"Wait a minute," he muttered to himself, then leaned back in surprise at how feminine his voice came out. Blinking and rubbing his eyes, Sano examined all the food like a jeweler inspecting a valuable diamond, finishing silently in his mind, _Since when did I ever have this much food in one place at one time?_ Now that he thought about it, just why _did_ his head feel so heavy, anyway, as though he'd suddenly grown a yard of hair overnight? And last time he checked, his voice didn't sound this feminine. And this room certainly looked way nicer than the ratty little dump he called home...   
"Strange," Sanosuke muttered in his girlie voice, grabbing a rice ball and shoving it into his mouth. Taking several more, he started to leave and head back to bed, when he happened to catch his reflection in a nearby mirror. The half-eaten rice ball dropped from his mouth, its whole companions following it, as Sano gawked at his new, improved self.   
"Great," he--or rather, _she_--grumbled to him/herself. "If I _had_ to switch bodies with someone, why couldn't it have been that jerk Saitou so that I could have made his wife leave him and then caused him to go bankrupt? Wait a minute..._switch bodies?!"_

A thud signaled the sound of Sanosuke in Megumi's body hitting the floor, having fainted dead away. Meanwhile, somewhere else, Saitou sneezed into his mug, causing some tea to splash onto his face. Sniffing and wiping the hot liquid away from his cheeks, he observed calmly, "Hn, someone's talking about me again." 


	2. Chapter Two: Megumi's Misfortunes

Megumi glanced around dreamily, wondering where all the water had suddenly come from. She felt strangely at peace, stretching out her arms and just enjoying the sensation of being embraced by the comfortingly warm liquid...before she suddenly had the distinct sensation of being smacked so hard, her brains rattled inside her skull.   
_"What the...?!"_ That, and a whole stream of other, highly unladylike cursing erupted from the normally calm, cool, and collected doctor, as she woke up with a start and flailed about, her arms pinwheeling wildly and upsetting what little furniture was in the room. Her hair hung slickly around her face in wet tendrils, her throat and nose felt like they were on fire, and on top of that, both her now bright scarlet cheeks were stinging from where Katsu had slapped her as hard as he could in an effort to revive whom he thought was his best friend.   
"Sano?" the long-haired ex-Sekihou Tai member asked worriedly, peering at "Sano's" face to make sure "he" was all right. Megumi blinked back confusedly, struggling to remember the events of the past fifteen minutes, when she suddenly realized that one of Katsu's hands on her arms was grazing the spot where her breasts would have been, and she instinctively hauled back and returned his earlier favor, slapping the taste right out of his mouth.   
"Ow!" Katsu's hand flew up to the red welt on his face, gingerly feeling it while he demanded angrily through a swelling cheek, "Whud wa' dad fer?" Megumi stared quizzically back at him, before finally deciphering that he'd meant to ask what was that for, and replied in a tight voice, "For groping me all over, you pervert, that's what!" A funny look came over Katsu's features, and for a moment Megumi wasn't sure whether he was going to throw up or explode into laughter, and while she wavered hesitantly between appropriate reactions, he spoke up knowingly as if he were the doctor and not her, "I see, Sano--damn, you must have been underwater longer than I thought; seems like you've lost a couple of brain cells down there, huh?"   
_"What?!" _A second slap mark now graced Katsu's once unblemished other cheek, and as the dazed man painfully rubbed at his new sore, Megumi fumed at being called stupid...when she suddenly recalled that Katsu had called her Sano. Twice.   
"Oh, no." She began feeling sick to her stomach, as more events from the previous fifteen minutes came flashing back to her--the nightmare about gambling and drinking, the waking up to realize all the changes that had occurred, the realization that she'd somehow taken on one Sagara Sanosuke's appearance...and what was it that Katsu had said about her being underwater?   
"Listen, I'm sorry for hitting you--" Megumi started to apologize, when Katsu recovered enough to punch her back in the face as a thank you for her two slaps. As Megumi dazedly blinked and tried to recover from the shock, Katsu staggered up and added, "Oh, and by the way, Sano, you hit like a girl!"   
"Of course I do, I _am_ a girl, you moron," Megumi muttered under her breath, earning herself a strange look from Katsu, who began discreetly inching away from her while coughing, "Er...right. Wow, just how long were you underwater, anyway?"   
"What did you say?" Megumi glared, causing him to put on a nervous smile while fumbling around for an excuse.   
"I, er, was just about to go get your friends, they'll want to know if you're all right, and you did once mention about that doctor bitch, she might be able to help you out right now," he revealed, hastily stumbling to his full height and beginning to totter out of the room. Megumi's left eyebrow began twitching dangerously at the Sano-quote, as she repeated through clenched teeth, "Oh, so I'm a doctor bitch now, am I?" 

* * *

**Fifteen Minutes Later...**

Kaoru worriedly examined Megumi's face, fretting, "We were so worried when your friend came over and told us you'd had an accident and nearly drowned." On an impulse, she reached over and hugged her, offering generously, "I'm so glad you're all right, Sano. Would you like me to make you some of my special soup to make you feel better?" _Not if feeling better means throwing up, Raccoon Girl,_ Megumi thought dryly to herself. Out loud, she declined in a polite voice, "Uh, no thank you. But it was very kind of you to offer." Kaoru leaned back, suspicion overriding the relief in her features as she tapped her chin thoughtfully with her index finger and murmured to herself, "Hmm, since when has Sagara Sanosuke ever been this polite? Wow, that must have been quite a fall into the water basin!" 

A few feet away, Katsu was explaining to Kenshin what had happened that evening.   
"I happened to work later than usual tonight, and when I walked by I thought I'd check up on Sano, since he mentioned earlier today about needing a loan to pay off some minor damages at Dr. Genzai's clinic," the taller man disclosed, causing Kenshin to sweatdrop and mutter, "Yeah, Megumi already told us her side of the story this afternoon."   
"Anyway, when I came in, I found Sano lying unconscious with his head stuck in the water basin, so I pulled him out and slapped his face to revive him," Katsu went on. "And then he went crazy and slapped me back for "groping him."   
"Huh?" The sweatdrop grew larger, as Kenshin echoed in bemusement, "Sano said that?" A good look at the twin red hand prints on either of Katsu's cheeks confirmed to the red-haired swordsman that Sano had said that and done much more. 

Back to where Kaoru was fussing over "Sano," Megumi had calmed down enough to try and analyze her problematic situation with a cool, scientific head. _Well, I've turned into Sanosuke, and his friend now thinks I'm crazy, _she thought tiredly to herself. _What could be worse? _A quick glance down at her attire revealed that things could, indeed be worse, as she blushed bright crimson when she realized she had no shirt on. Her, elegant and conservatively modest Megumi, who always wore an extra apron over her kimono to make sure nothing inappropriate could be seen.   
"I'm topless!" she gasped, horrified, her hands flying up to her--or Sano's--bare chest as though to cover it up. "How utterly improper and distasteful!" Kaoru winced and gingerly smoothed back some locks of hair that had been blown out of place by Megumi's outraged howl, venturing cautiously, "Are you sure you're feeling all right, Sano?" even as "Sano" frenziedly ran around like a chicken that had just had its head cut off in "his" hysterical quest for a shirt. _Since when has Sanosuke been so modest about his torso? _Kaoru silently wondered to herself. _If anything, he's always wearing his shirt wide open as though he can't show off his muscles often enough!_ Getting up and walking over to Kenshin, who'd finished conversing with Katsu and now wore a thoughtful frown on his face, Kaoru whispered confidentially into his ear, "I think we should get poor Sano to a doctor. He's not acting like himself; his brain must be waterlogged from having his head underwater for such a long time!" Kenshin nodded thoughtfully, a mildly suspicious look in his violet eyes as his mind worked to secure a glimmer of an idea that had occurred to him while watching "Sanosuke" frantically throwing on every garment "he" could find to cover up "his" bare chest and stomach. After a few more minutes of musing, Kenshin frowned and gave up trying to recapture his initial notion, putting the inkling in the back of his mind and deciding that it would come back to him later.   
"All right," he finally agreed, taking charge and suggesting kindly, "Sano, we should get Megumi to check you over for any injuries." 

Megumi stopped abruptly in her tracks when she heard her name mentioned, finally satisfied that she was now adequately covered up after seven layers of shirts (it wasn't just some obsession with propriety on her part; most of Sano's shirts had unsightly rips and tears here and there anyway, so that glimpses of skin would still show if she wore only one layer).   
"Yes, we should do just that," she gritted out, warily curbing her language to make sure she didn't unwittingly spout some unchecked insult against Sanosuke and prompt the others into dumping her in a mental asylum as a result. "In fact, I'd like to see that bonehead--er, beautiful and knowledgeable lady doctor--about a little problem that's surfaced tonight." As Katsu stayed behind to nurse his injuries and the trio set out for Megumi's place, Kaoru leaned in and whispered to Kenshin, "See, I told you something was wrong with Sano--he's never this polite, especially not about Megumi!" 

* * *

**At Megumi's House...**

Megumi hastened her pace as she saw her house coming into view, practically flying off the street and leaving Kenshin and Kaoru behind her to cough in her handy little dust trail. The latter two hastened to catch up to her, nearly sprinting to keep up with her furious pace, when they suddenly heard her inhale sharply.   
"Oof!"   
"Ow!"   
Kenshin and Kaoru grimaced as they bumped into Megumi, tall and muscular in Sanosuke's form and frozen dead in her tracks as she stopped and gawked at apparently some highly horrific sight lounging on the front porch of her house.   
"YOU BONEHEAD, ARE YOU PURPOSELY TRYING TO RUIN MY REPUTATION?!!!" Megumi suddenly shrieked in Sano's deep voice, nearly blowing the real Sano right back into her house while successfully popping the eardrums of the hapless couple standing behind her.   
"Sanosuke should really try to check his manners around women, that he should," Kenshin grimaced, his eyes still spinning dizzily from the massive screech. Beside him, Kaoru turned around and hollered in an equally loud voice, "What?! I can't hear you!" Kenshin winced again, brushing off his earlier comment, "Never mind, let's just see what's angered Sano so much." 

The real Megumi was standing in front of them, bristling like a female dragon and with smoke practically shooting out of her ears in anger while her eyes glowed fire. Lounging around on her porch was Sanosuke trapped in Megumi's body, staring wide-eyed at his unexpected visitors. Caught off-guard both by his surprise callers and by Megumi's furious shriek, he hadn't had a chance to make his appearance more appropriate--the appearance of "Megumi" resting lazily against a pillar, decked out not in one of her demure kimonos and aprons, but rather in a very much stolen Western dress, with the wooden hoops messily ripped out and the massive skirts hiked all the way up to his lap.   
"Er..." Sano alternated wary glances between the dismayed and incredibly embarrassed-looking Kenshin and the bright red Kaoru, then darted a look at the real Megumi, who looked ready to hitch his skirts up to his head and choke him out with them. "Er...I can explain. Honestly, I can." 


	3. Chapter Three: Sagara Sanosuke, Medicine...

As a former junior member of the Sekihou Tai, a highly skilled fighter, and somebody who'd gotten into more than his share of trouble over the years, Sanosuke had learned that it was never wise to stay passed out for very long. Obviously in one of his fights, if he by some small miracle got knocked out cold and stayed that way for more than a couple of minutes, the chances of him escaping with all his vital anatomy intact would have then lessened considerably. The fact that Sano had learned it was also unwise to pass out in front of Katsu during their Sekihou Tai days, lest his best friend shave his eyebrows off for this particular blunder, also played a key role when he managed to regain consciousness with considerable speed after fainting a few minutes earlier over becoming Megumi. 

Regaining consciousness swiftly, however, soon proved to be one of Sano's dumber ideas, when not a minute after he'd begun coming to terms with the fact that he was now Megumi than a knock sounded on the door and a child's voice spoke timidly, "Um, Dr. Takani? I'm sorry if I'm disturbing you, but Dr. Genzai really needs you at the clinic." Groaning, Sano propped himself up into a sitting position and rubbed gingerly at a growing bump on his head, calling back grumpily, "Yeah, come in." A creaking sound signaled that the messenger boy had accepted his invitation, and soon afterwards a kid around Yahiko's age pattered uncertainly into the hallway.   
"So they need the fox lady--uh, I mean, me--at the clinic, huh?" Sano demanded dryly, his mind whirring for an excuse to worm out of his doctor's duties. "Listen, kid, I'm not the person you want, why don't you try bothering this really mean, grumpy-looking policeman called Saitou...?" He started to suggest, when he noticed that the messenger boy's face had slowly begun to turn an interesting shade of red. Sano paused in mid-ramble, giving the boy a funny look while demanding, "You all right, kid?" The boy quickly averted his eyes, apparently finding the wooden floorboards in front of his feet suddenly very interesting, while he squeaked out, still blushing furiously, "Y-y-yes, Dr. Takani." Sano started to thoughtfully tap his chin, wondering if this peculiar behavior was all a part of growing up in the Meiji era. 

It took him a full five minutes, with the messenger boy still keeping his eyes steadfastly on the floor and occasionally squeaking some lame excuse that he should go to the clinic, for Sano to figure out that as "Megumi," he'd been wearing nothing but a flimsy little white nightgown during the entire conversation.   
"Oh." Personally, since this was Megumi's body being disgraced, Sano wasn't exactly all heartbroken, but common sense told him that if he was being forced to make house calls in the middle of the night, it might be wise to throw on something warmer than just a flimsy nightgown, so he grumbled, "All right, all right, I'll go change and assist Dr. Genzai at the clinic." He started to get up and head on over to his--Megumi's--bedroom, when he suddenly remembered something. Turning around to the messenger boy with a small frown on his face, Sano asked pleasantly enough, "Hey, kid, do you happen to know how a kimono's supposed to be put on? I mean, can you help me dress, because frankly, I have no idea how to--" He never got to finish his sentence, when the messenger boy gave a little croak and fainted dead away. Sano stopped, looking down thoughtfully at the poor kid.   
"Hmm. Now, how am I supposed to fix a nosebleed again?" he wondered to himself. 

* * *

_Personally, I never knew how fanatically organized a little clinic could be at two in the morning,_ Sano thought wryly to himself as he watched all the patients lined up in a neat, straight procession, waiting to be treated by one of the best doctors in Tokyo, Dr. Takani Megumi.   
"This isn't good," Sano swore under his breath, wondering where to begin. 

After five long minutes of debating where to start treating the patients, he finally decided he might as well begin with the healthiest-looking patient, a tall, strapping youth in his late twenties. Walking over to the young man and trying to look as knowledgeable as he could, Sano spoke, "What is your name, sir?"   
"Hanazawa Shigeru, Doctor...but I'm planning to change my name for my religion," he answered seriously. Sano nodded, pretending to look attentive while the man's words went in one ear and happily zipped straight out the other as he wondered to himself whether he could take one more step in Megumi's kimono, with its insanely straight and narrow skirt, without tripping and falling on his face.   
"Religion, huh?" Sano improvised, asking, "Are you a very religious man, Mr. Honolulu?"   
"It's Hanazawa," the man corrected him, "And yes, I am quite religious, Dr. Takani."   
"Good, good. Here's what you should do," Sano began to dictate. "Pray five times everyday to Buddha, and he'll, uh, purge your body of this uncleanness." His patient leaned back, startled.   
"But I am not a Buddhist," he said slowly. Sano shrugged.   
"Oh, so you're one of those Christian converts, then," he guessed. "Fine, pray to Jesus five times everyday, and _he'll_ purge you."   
"Dr. Takani, you don't seem to understand," the patient interrupted. "I am a devout follower of Islam." Sano nearly tripped over the clunky soles of Megumi's wooden sandals and fell flat on his butt at hearing that, as he gabbled, "You are? How many kinds of missionaries do we have in this country anyway? Never mind, just pray five times to, uh, whomever Islams pray to, and you won't need me to prescribe you any medicine."   
"We're called Muslims," the man replied in a tight voice, as Sano shrugged and shooed him off, grumbling, "Whatever, I don't care." He grabbed a little dark bottle and shoved it into the man's hand, adding, "But take this medicine along, anyway, in case your higher powers don't cure you." Interestingly enough, Sano failed to notice the little label pasted on one side of the bottle, which read in the real Megumi's neat, careful handwriting, _Constipation Treatment._ Out loud, he congratulated himself as his first patient left the clinic, "Hmm, I'm starting to get very good at this. Leave it to Megumi to exaggerate all the hard work and duties that goes with being a doctor! I can handle this with my eyes closed!" 

* * *

**Half An Hour Later...**

"Dr. Takani, we need you to attend on Mr. Ishino's surgery--"   
"Dr. Takani, you have three new patients waiting to be treated by you--"   
"Dr. Takani, little Emi's thrown up again, can you help us clean up the mess--"   
"Dr. Takani, there's been a complaint that you prescribed horse medicine to a pregnant woman for her chronic vomiting--" 

"Megumi," Dr. Genzai spoke quietly, "the elderly Mrs. Matsui has just informed me that your language with her was rather, er, how should I put this, vulgar and disrespectful?" Sano, collapsed exhaustedly on the floor and cursing the higher powers that had brought on this switch, glanced over dully at the good doctor and mumbled, "Was I? It sounded like my regular everyday language to me." 

Fortunately for Sano, before Dr. Genzai could start questioning Megumi's sanity, a new person walked into the clinic--an American girl.   
"Please, I'm looking for a doctor," she spoke urgently in awkward, badly-accented Japanese. "My mistress is in, well, she's been in a certain condition for the last nine months, and she needs a doctor desperately tonight," the little maid finished delicately. Dr. Genzai nodded to Sano, asking him, "Megumi, you won't mind cutting your impromptu break short, will you? Perhaps you can go and treat the patient at her house." Sano shrugged, muttering, "Sure, all right. I've been through it all tonight, how could it get any worse?" He started to get up and follow the little American maid out the clinic doors, before a thought suddenly occurred to him and he turned around and asked, "Wait a minute--what is this condition that I'm supposed to treat, anyway?" He then tripped and fell for the umpteenth time from inexperience with walking in long and narrow kimonos, failing to hear Dr. Genzai's reply but assuring himself that it couldn't possibly be too bad. 

* * *

**At The Americans' House...**

Nurses and maids scrambled everywhere, carrying washcloths and hot bricks wrapped in towels in the wake of a long and difficult birth. Just then, a man walked up and flagged down the nearest house servant, asking anxiously, "How is she?"   
"She's definitely not in the best shape of her life, but she'll survive," the little maid replied seriously. "She's resting now. Do you want to see her?" The man nodded.   
"Of course," he said. "I'll have to bring her back to the clinic with me...By the way, how did the birth go?" The little maid's face shone with pride, as she gushed, "Oh, he's a beautiful baby boy. His name is going to be Raiford Jonathan Hampton, after both his father and his grandfather. Mrs. Hampton was so brave during the entire birth, she never panicked, not even when the supposedly experienced and dependable doctor you sent over fainted dead away during the first stage of labor." Dr. Genzai frowned thoughtfully to himself at that, thinking out loud, "I wonder what's wrong with Megumi tonight. She's not acting like herself at all." 

* * *

**An Hour After That...**

Sano settled himself on the front porch of Megumi's house, exhausted out of his mind and somewhat embarrassed that he, Sagara Sanosuke, ex-Sekihou Tai member, the former gangster and fighter-for-haire known as Zanza, had passed out cold and hit his head against the knees of some bossy black woman everybody called Big Mama at his first glimpse of where babies truly came from. The bedroom where the American woman's baby had been delivered was as hot as Hell itself...but at least he got _something_ good out of it, he thought wryly to himself, glancing down at the insanely wide hoop skirt he was now sporting instead of Megumi's kimono. Sure the hoop skirt ballooned to ridiculous proportions--all of Sano's earthly possessions could easily fit under it with plenty of room to spare--but at least it allowed him far more mobility than the neat, narrow, and straight skirt of Megumi's kimonos that had caused him to trip and fall down with every other step and were responsible for the several red-and-purple bruises now decorating his body. The entire American household had been too preoccupied with the new addition to their family to notice when Sano had stolen one of the ladies' dresses...but it was still so incredibly hot in this outfit, even with the generous skirts. Sano reached down and undid the top three buttons, then glanced around to make sure nobody was around to see him, before hitching up the hoop skirts to his lap and fanning his legs. 

Suddenly, there was the sound of pounding footsteps screeching to a halt, and, as Sano started to look up, his own voice shrieked at him, "YOU BONEHEAD, ARE YOU PURPOSELY TRYING TO RUIN MY REPUTATION?!!!" 

* * *

**Present Time...**

Sano nodded wisely as he finished his tall tale.   
"And that's exactly what happened. I promise," he said earnestly, while beside him, Megumi continued to fume. Kaoru looked confused at the ending, and Kenshin asked incredulously, "So you spent the entire evening dutifully looking after patients, paid one last house call and sacrificed your sleep while doing so to attend on a dying American woman, miraculously brought her back to life but was then ambushed by her evil American son, who tried to convert you to Christianity and forced you to wear one of their Western dresses, but you somehow managed to escape after initially running around in hysterics like the "idiot fox lady" that you are, came back here, and flipped up your skirt to take off the miniature Bible the evil American son had tied to your ankles?" Sano nodded again.   
"That's right," he confirmed, the picture of innocence, then glanced around at all the wide, disbelieving eyes fixed on him, and scoffed, "Oh, come on! Is that so hard to believe?" 


	4. Chapter Four: You Are What You Wear

*You guys, I am so, so, soooooooo unbelievably sorry for in the incredibly delayed update! I have no real excuse, other than a little something known as *drumroll* writer's block! Dun dun dun! I can't say I'm completely over it quite yet, but I think it's safe to say I've at least begun to chip at my block to come out with this chapter. Hope you guys like it, so please R&R.* 

* * *

Megumi sighed gloomily to herself as she went to work mending all of Sano's grungy clothes, a million things running through her mind as to how she could be spending her time. _I could be at work, treating patients, for one thing, _she thought frostily to herself, _rather than patching up the bonehead's clothing while he's prancing around in that ridiculous Western frippery of a garment!_ But what was a decorous, well-educated lady trapped in a man's body to do, when everything said man had to wear boasted some kind of hole or another? While Sano seemed to have no problem running around with his shirt wide open, Megumi simply couldn't allow herself to go out in public with holes in her clothes. And that hair! That awful, hideous, absurdly stiff hair that always insisted on shooting straight up as though standing at attention like soldiers on the top of her head, no matter what the poor lady doctor did to try and smooth it down. The weight of all that hair, pulled rigidly up at the top of her head, automatically tilted it backwards, so that Megumi was forced to walk around as though a dead weight had been attached to her scalp. She'd seriously considered shaving Sano bald while she was in his body, if not for sweet revenge then at least so that her head wouldn't be permanently tilted at an angle, but she'd finally decided that as much as Sano would hate her for it, she would hate herself even more if she had to bear walking around in public while stuck in his body with a head as smooth and hairless as a duck egg. 

So, Megumi endured: endured as she patched up holes and stitched together tears, endured as she finally managed to unwind those ridiculous bandages Sano had wrapped around his torso (they were cutting off circulation to her lungs as much as a corset would have cut off Sano's air had he been stupid enough to steal one along with his crinoline from the American household), endured even as she'd hastily sewn some buttons onto Sano's shirt so that she could cover her chest and stomach while being relegated to wearing it in his body. But the hair! The atrociously stiff hair! Even the almost always calm, cool, and collected Megumi couldn't endure for long walking around with her head sloped at an obtuse angle thanks to the weight of her hair pulling it backwards...which was how she found herself at the Kamiya Dojo the day after that fateful night when the Kenshin-gumi had discovered Sano in Megumi's body with his skirt over his head and showing a disgraceful amount of leg. Too preoccupied with trying to see at an upwards angle to notice where she was going, Megumi wound up painfully bumping the entire left side of Sano's body right against a pillar, letting out a startled yelp at the impact and automatically drawing back.   
"Ow," Megumi groaned to herself, rubbing at her sore shoulder and silently cursing Sano for having such a big, clumsy gait in addition to heavy and rigid hair that slanted her head back and prevented her from seeing below the skyline. 

"You've been drinking again, haven't you?" a snidely amused masculine voice spoke up impudently, causing Megumi to snap her head down at such a furiously swift speed that she nearly gave herself whiplash. A pair of wide brown eyes looked up at her from a swarthy, rascally little face crowned by a shock of coal-black hair, causing Megumi to frown and irritably work out his name, not in the mood to be heckled while being trapped in the body of a more or less grown-up man with the maturity level of a two-year-old.   
"Yahiko. Shouldn't you be practicing your training or something?" she half-snapped in an uncharacteristically testy voice, still rubbing her sore shoulder and beginning to see why Sano and Kaoru always seemed on the verge of throttling the ten-year-old boy. When Myojin Yahiko wanted to be annoying, he could really be a wretched, sardonic little monster. Yahiko refused to grace her question with a reply, crossing his arms knowingly in front of his chest and demanding, "All right, Rooster Head, how much money did you gamble away _this_ time?" Megumi felt her eyebrows fly up in insulted outrage, as she hissed angrily, "Who are you calling Rooster Head, little boy? In a few more years, your hair will end up every bit as stiff and ridiculous as Sanosuke's!" 

Yahiko began to spit back a furious comeback, when he unexpectedly stopped, a confused expression pushing away whatever anger still lingered as he wondered curiously, "Uh, Sano? Just how drunk _did_ you get last night?" Megumi paused, bewildered by his words...before she realized that she'd slipped up and accidentally referred to Sanosuke in the third person while she was still in his body.   
"I, uh, always refer to myself by my own name," she improvised lamely with a sweatdrop, then cleared her throat and harrumphed in an effort to compensate for her mistake, "After all, I'm Sagara Sanosuke--where did you get the idea that I--er, Sanosuke--knows anything even resembling good grammar?" Yahiko shrugged, discreetly beginning to edge away from Megumi while mentally making a note to harass Kenshin into chaperoning Sanosuke the next time the ex-gangster went drinking with his shoddy-looking friends.   
"Either way, I--Sanosuke--didn't come here to visit you," Megumi hastily plunged on. "Where's Kaoru?" Yahiko shrugged absently.   
"She's...somewhere...I don't know, actually, I was just hiding out from her because she's making me scrub the toilets, can you believe her?" he disclosed, a whining tone finding its way to his voice as he admitted why he'd been forced to take flight from the master of the dojo. 

As Megumi rolled her eyes in his direction and silently tucked away this little piece of blackmail against the young boy, a feminine voice floated in from the woods behind the dojo, calling out almost cheerfully, "Oh, Yahiko! Don't forget you still have to wash all the dishes, do the laundry, dust the furniture, scrub the floor, and go into town to buy all next week's groceries after you're done cleaning out the toilets!" Yahiko's eyes widened into coffee-colored rice bowls, before he quickly squeaked out in a strangled voice, "Eep! I have to go now, don't tell Kaoru I was here, Sanosuke!" And he took off in a flash of dust and dirt, mumbling a string of words under his breath that sounded suspiciously obscene to Megumi's ears. 

The elegant lady doctor never had time to ponder Yahiko's degenerating vocabulary, when Kamiya Kaoru emerged into view, a wide smile of greeting lighting up her face when she recognized Megumi-as-Sanosuke standing by the entrance of her dojo.   
"Oh, hi, Sano," the eighteen-year-old girl spoke up in a friendly voice. "You're up early for a change. Don't you usually sleep in until three in the afternoon?" Megumi ignored the teasing tone in her voice, asking anxiously, "Listen, Kaoru, I just stopped by to ask you if you've seen Sano--erm, I mean, me--erm, I mean, Megumi." Kaoru gave her a strange look, but thankfully attributed "Sano's" strange behavior to "his" near-drowning experience the previous night, and replied nonchalantly, "Actually, it's funny that you asked, Sano, because Megumi was here less than fifteen minutes ago." 

Megumi perked up at those words.   
"He was?" she burst forth eagerly, then at Kaoru's weird look, quickly corrected herself with a hasty, "I mean, _she_ was?" Kaoru shrugged and nodded, adjusting the sleeves of her kimono as she added, "Yes, and behaving most oddly. You wouldn't believe her language, Sano--it's almost like she turned into you this morning. Just how many curse words _are_ there, anyway?" Megumi smarted and bristled, mentally swearing to rip Sanosuke's head off for finding with so little effort all these little ways to tarnish her respectable reputation.   
"What did he--she--want?" she asked after she'd calmed down, forcing a neutral tone into her voice.   
"She actually wanted to know where you would be, can you believe that?" Kaoru replied. "Something about how she couldn't endure any more sights of, ah, childbirth--or at least that's what I think she was insinuating. It was hard to decipher what she meant by all those, ahem, rough words about babies popping out and something I really wouldn't care to ever hear again." Even the tomboyish, unfussy Kaoru blushed furiously as she quoted "Megumi," causing the real lady doctor to turn bright crimson in her rage.   
"They must have been medical terms, I'm sure you just misunderstood her," Megumi muttered in an effort to do some damage control. 

Kaoru shrugged, then added casually as she picked up a broom and began to sweep the dojo steps, "And then Megumi left, I guess for the clinic, after I'd helped stitch in the waistline of her Western dress--something about how fat the original waistline made her look, the way the top of the dress just sort of flapped around limply around her." Megumi scowled.   
"I don't think it's the dress that's making him look fat," she grumbled under her breath. "His waist is as big as a cow's, and it only looks heftier crowded into that mountain of a frock!" Kaoru shot her a look, curious at her sudden cattiness, but for once refrained from voicing her opinion loud and clear, and instead made way as Megumi stormed past her, seething and looking for blood.   
"You're going to the clinic then, Sanosuke?" the younger girl called after her. Megumi failed to turn around, only continued walking with grim determination as she muttered darkly under her breath, "Definitely." She didn't even notice the sudden smug smirk that came over Kaoru's features, as she snickered to herself about opposites--real, _real_ opposites--attracting. 

* * *

**Near Dr. Genzai's Clinic...**

Sanosuke groaned in dismay, turning around and tugging violently at the wide, spreading skirts of the Western dress he'd stolen from the American household while he'd been "presiding" over its mistress's childbirth.   
"Come on, damn you," he cursed grumpily, ignoring the snickers of the children and poorly concealed looks of mirth from passers-by as they gawked at the rather comical sight of a tall, statuesque raven-haired beauty decked out in ill-fitting pink hoop skirts and lodged firmly in a doorway.   
"Move! Argh!" A highly unladylike stream of curses continued to fall from Sano's lips, as he wriggled desperately about inside the voluminous hoop skirts in an effort do unclog himself from the entranceway. His vehement movements caused the spreading skirts to swirl and dance like silky pink bells, causing him to unwittingly attract a horde of eager young men who stopped dead in their tracks and gawked, entranced and unashamed, at the alluringly swaying hips of the beautiful lady doctor.   
"Why won't you budge!" Sano howled in frustrated outrage at his Western dress, before resolutely deciding that he had no other choice but to further humiliate Megumi's body in public. Bending down, he lifted the skirts all the way up to his waist and carefully started inching his way through the doorway. Meanwhile, all around him, several men's eyes goggled at the alien but extremely pleasing view, before their owners fainted and collapsed in unsightly heaps onto the ground, much to the disgust of the women on the streets, who immediately clustered together and began heatedly whispering that Dr. Takani was a brazen hussy. 

Sano was barely free from one impending catastrophe when he bumped right into another, as the real Megumi glared daggers at the sheepish ex-Sekihou Tai member, before beginning to screech furiously in a voice so loud, Sano's hair was practically blown from his face.   
"You bonehead! Are you deliberately trying to destroy my reputation?!" the frazzled doctor wailed, nearly throttling him in her fury. Sano gulped nervously, before raising his hands protectively over his face and squeaking out the same excuse he'd been using ever since last night.   
"Listen, Fox Lady, I can explain everything," he whimpered, looking like he might drop down to his knees and kiss her feet if she ordered him to. "Honestly, I can! It's not what you think! Honestly, it isn't!" 


End file.
